


I Turn at Last to Paths That Lead Home

by MYuzuki



Series: A Motley Little Crew of Dysfunction [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: #batfamcontentwar, (A warning for cussing/cursing/swearing because Jason), Assassination Attempt(s), Batfam Content War 2017, Brotherly Love, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I wrote this very quickly in like a day so it's probably terrible?, Injured Jason, Jason-Centric, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, batfamcontentwar, but I ran out of time, meant to have this posted yesterday, of the batfam variety so expect lots of attitude and snark, once I figure out what tags actually apply to this hot mess XD, the story wouldn't stop growing XD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-27 16:06:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12084495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MYuzuki/pseuds/MYuzuki
Summary: Jason is used to pissing people off and getting into fights. It's pretty much in the job description, after all. But an actual assassination attempt isn't something that happens very often, so when he ends up shot, stabbed, and with no clue as to who's behind it, he's faced with a bit of a conundrum.His night only gets more complicated when his estranged brothers somehow insinuate themselves into the situation.





	1. Don't Let Each Other Wander in the Dark Alone

**Author's Note:**

> So...hi! My life is currently kind of a dumpster fire and I'm super busy, but I don't see that as a reason to miss out on #batfamcontentwar. That being said, this was written in a hurry (and I regrettably couldn't finish in time to post on the day itself because the story just kept growing, so sorry for the belated offering XD) so please excuse any typos or tense issues.

Jason would have liked to be able to say that having a gunshot wound in one shoulder and a knife wound in one thigh was a rare occurrence.

Unfortunately, due to the cascading consequences of some bad fucking luck and questionable life choices, this sort of thing happened a little more often than was desirable.

He isn't used to being on the receiving end of an actual  _assassination attempt_ , though. Not one that was on him, at least. On other people, sure. Or getting injured at the hands of some criminal thug or gang lord he'd pissed off, that was fine. Annoying when it happened, because he was damn good and getting wounded, even a little, was vaguely insulting, all things considered, but it was something that happened occasionally and he could deal with it.

And injured was better than dead, he knew that firsthand. Not that either condition was ideal, but still.

He'd much rather be nursing a GSW and a bleeding gash on his leg than digging and crawling his way out of a coffin. Again.

The thing that's actually bugging him, though...who the fuck had put out a hit on him?

Seriously. Who could have put out a bounty for his life, for the  _Red fucking Hood_ , without him hearing about it before now? He isn't precisely a crime lord himself anymore, but he still has contacts and informants; he should have heard something about there being a kill order out for him.

Well, whatever. He'll get to the bottom of it soon enough. He just needs to ferret out a few of the more reliable information brokers and he'll have his answers. Then he could track down whatever arrogant bastard it was, put a couple bullets in their kneecaps, and ditch them at the closest police precinct. After that, it'd be smooth sailing; he could go home to his closest safe house, stitch up his wounds, and pass out on his beat-to-hell couch.

This simple and straightforward plan is rather monumentally derailed when someone he decidedly does  _not_ want to see swings right into his confab with a recalcitrant informant.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Nightwing?" Red Hood demands, cursing up a storm as the informant suddenly pulls out an Uzi and opens fire at the sight of the other vigilante; apparently two masked men is where he draws the line.

"I was looking for you," Dick Grayson says, his tone indicating that it should be obvious. "Heard you ran into some trouble earlier tonight, wanted to make sure you were okay."

Jason briefly considers shooting him (nothing fatal or serious, of course, just a graze) because the sudden concern for his well-being is too little, too late and makes him feel like he has fire ants crawling across his skin. It was like that whenever he saw any of the Bats lately, to be honest; they kept their distance most of the time, but would pop up unexpectedly to "check up on him", as if they had any right whatsoever to do so.

He's pretty sure he liked it better when they'd all been determined to beat the shit out of each other. This weird concern from them was uncomfortable and awkward, and as much as the orphaned little kid in him appreciated the care, the larger part of him was a traumatized adult with some anger issues who wanted absolutely nothing to do with the family that had made it very clear time and time again that they didn't actually want him around, not really.

"Get lost, asshole," Jason tells him, grateful for the voice modulation in his helmet that cancels out the slight hitch in his voice (whether it's from the pain of his wounds or some weird emotional flare-up, he doesn't know and doesn't want to know). "I have work to do."

"Anything I can do to help?" Nightwing asks, his voice just a little too cheerful for someone hunkering down behind a packing crate while a paranoid informant shoots in their direction.

"You can help by  _going away_ ," Jason snaps, upholstering one of his pistols and flicking off the safety.

"Sorry, Little Wing," Dick responds. "Never going to happen."

Jason grumbles under his breath, hoping that Nightwing's "never" is more of a short-term one rather than a farther-reaching "you will never ever be rid of my annoying presence so suck it up and deal" but he's probably not that lucky. And God knows how persistent the original Robin is about his ideas regarding "family"; Jason's seen ornery mules less stubborn than the acrobat when it comes to something that matters to him.

"Fucking fine," he hisses at last, not quite willing to get into an all-out brawl with his predecessor when his top priority needs to be finding out who (else) wants him dead (again). "Just stay out of my way, got it?"

"Sure thing," Dick chirps, and Jason kind of just wants to strangle him until he stops smiling like a lottery winner.

They deal with the Uzi-wielding informant in point-zero-seven seconds, since they might not (technically) be on the same side anymore, but they're still used to each other, familiar enough with each other's movements and fighting styles to work together as an almost flawless unit.

"I kind of needed to ask him some questions, though," Jason complains once they'd knocked the other guy out.

"What kinds of questions?" Nightwing asks, his tone a little too innocent to be believable.

Jason narrows his eyes, not that it's visible under his mask. "None of your business," he says shortly, hoping (however futile that hope might be) that the asshole will take the hint.

Dick, predictably, doesn't drop it. "It wouldn't have anything to do with that attempt on your life earlier, would it?"

Jason wonders if it's too late to go jump in front of a speeding train to spare himself the inevitable lecture that's undoubtedly coming his way soon. "Maybe, maybe not. Not really your business either way, is it?"

Nightwing gets a wounded look and heaves a deep sigh. "Why do you have to say things like that?" he asks, sounding equal parts exasperated and sad. "You know I care about you, Little Wing."

Jason snorts, shaking his head. "Yeah," he drawls. "Sure you do. Because nothing says brotherly love like tossing me in Arkham." He hadn't let them keep him for very long before busting out, but it was the principle of the thing that pissed him off. (And the fact he'd been five doors down from the fucking Joker, but he tries really hard not to think about that, because if he does he really will go insane.)

Dick actually winces, and has the decency to look shame-faced. "Listen, Jason-"

"No names in the field," Jason retorts, bitterness lacing his tone. "And there's nothing you can say about it that I'd want to hear, Nightwing. We're not really brothers and we never have been, so why don't you do us both a huge favor and stop pretending that we're some happy little vigilante family? It's a stupid dream, and it's never gonna happen."

He doens't mention that once upon a time having Dick Grayson as his big brother had been the most incredible thing, at least whenever they weren't snapping and snarling at each other. He'd never had any siblings before that; he'd almost had one once, but his mother had miscarried the baby and his father had been in prison after that. So those days when Dick had played the role of big brother had been...pretty great, actually, even if Jason hadn't known how to respond the right away.

He tries not to think about that, too. Because there had been anger and resentment between them during Jason's run as Robin...but there had been some good times, too, and thinking about those better memories hurts almost as much.

Dick, here and now, takes a deep breath like he's bracing himself for something, and doesn't look away from Jason. "We're still brothers," he says firmly. "I don't care if you don't believe it; it's the truth, and it's not going to change. Now," he goes on, deliberately ignoring Jason's scoff, "where to next?"

"What do you mean, where to next?" Jason asks suspiciously.

Dick sounds only vaguely impatient when he answers. "I meant exactly what I said: where are we going now?"

"Hold up a sec," Jason objects. "There is no we in this equation, asshat. You are going to return to your goody-two-shoes patrol while I find out who put a hit out on me. So, thanks for dropping by, but you can go get fucked now." He turns away and starts to walk away and has to hold in a aggravated sigh when he hears matching footsteps following him. "What part of 'get lost' was unclear to you?"

"What part of 'I'm not leaving you' was unclear to you?" Nightwing shoots back, and Jason does sigh this time, because Dick is  _so stubborn_. It would almost be endearing if it weren't ticking him off so badly.

But instead of shooting his brother in the foot like he wants to, he just huffs and grumbles and lets him follow along (and truthfully he's not terribly confident in his ability to actually  _stop_  Dick from following him, even if he tried; short of seriously wounding the guy or actually trying to kill him, which actually isn't an idea he's overly enthused about now that most of the Lazarus-induced homicidal rage had leeched out of his system, there's just not much he can do to get rid of the ever-persistent Nightwing).

But he doesn't have to  _encourage_  it. So he spends about fifteen minutes half-heartedly trying to shake off his brother by winding through the streets and alleys of the Bowery, vaguely hoping that Dick'll just get bored and leave him alone.

No such luck, though, and eventually Jason does have to actually get back to trying to find out who wants him dead, so he gives up and circles back around to where the attempt on his life had actually taken place, in the hopes of spotting a clue he'd missed before (he'd been distracted by blood loss, after all).

If Dick has any commentary about Jason trying to shake him off like a bad tail, he doesn't share it. Instead, he lets out a low whistle when he sees the bloodstains on the ground from where Jason had been standing when he'd been stabbed and shot.

"Damn, Little Wing," Nightwing says, and Jason tries to ignore the concern underneath the easy-going tone. "How are you still vertical after losing this much blood?"

"It's not as bad as it looks," Jason says dismissively, although honestly he's not quite sure how bad it is yet; he's been running on adrenaline and anger for the last few hours since the attack and hasn't slowed down long enough to actually check his wounds; he knows that they hurt and that the bleeding has slowed a bit, but beyond that all he doesn't know how bad the damage is.

Dick makes a skeptical noise that Jason ignores, and then finally drifts away to better examine the scene, but not before giving Jason a very clear we'll-talk-about-this-later look that's obvious even through his domino mask.

Jason makes a mental note to ditch Nightwing before the older man can kick up a fuss about his wounds and demand he take better care of himself; he's heard all that bullshit before and it's exhausting just to imagine it. (He's survived worse, after all; hell, he's come back from the dead. A couple bullet holes or knife wounds aren't going to put him down. He's not even sure why Dick gets all worked up about it.)

"What happened to the guy who attacked you?" Nightwing asks after a moment of surprisingly companionable quiet. "I can't hope but notice the lack of a corpse."

"Maybe I just cleaned up after myself and tossed the bastard in a dumpster," Jason replies nastily, kneeling down to peer more closely at the blood trail his attacker had left behind from when Jason had returned fire and clipped the asshole in the hip. (He regrets not giving chase immediately after the attack, but he'd stupidly decided to take advantage of wounding his opponent by putting some distance between himself and his assassin in the hopes of not getting dead again; now he's going to need to run the bastard to ground while injured.)

"Somehow I doubt I'm going to find a body in the trash," Dick says dryly.

Jason just grunts, pulling out his phone to take a quick snapshot of the blood trail.

"...You haven't killed anyone in a while," Nightwing says now, his voice so quiet it's almost inaudible.

Jason stands up abruptly, heart pounding in his chest for no reason that he understands. "That you know about," he snaps, refusing to acknowledge the truth in his brother's words. It's not that he thinks non-lethal crime-fighting is the answer to all of Gotham's problems; Bruce's No Killing rule hasn't helped the parts of Gotham that need it most, hasn't helped avenge any of worst victims, and Jason firmly believes that there are without a doubt certain pieces of scum that deserve to be wiped from existence.

He mostly just hasn't wanted to draw Batman's ire while staying in the city; he and Bruce get into enough fights as is (pretty much every time they accidentally cross paths), why do something that will get Gotham's Dark Knight to drop down on him like an executioner's ax?

(He won't admit, not even to himself really, that sometimes those disappointed looks from Bruce and Dick and the others  _hurt_ , in a way that makes his heart twist in his chest with an emotion that's not quite guilt but maybe something close; he'd thought himself beyond such things after the Joker and the Lazarus Pit and those years of hellish training around the globe, but apparently not.)

Dick, perhaps sensing that Jason is one wrong word away from exploding like a thrown grenade, decides to let the topic drop and instead starts tracking the assassin's blood trail. "Looks like you nailed him pretty good," he says, the change of subject obvious but also obviously needed. "He can't have gotten very far if he's bleeding that much."

Jason takes a deep breath, holds it for a count of five, and then exhales slowly. He repeats this twice more until he's wrestled down his burst of temper and then follows Nightwing.

They follow the blood trail through the dark and gritting streets until they come across the assassin.

Jason would be happy to have found the bastard...except he's unconcious in a puddle of blood and clearly in no condition ot be inerrogated about his employer anytime soon.

"Well, fuck," Jason bites out as Dick puts in an anonymous call for emergency services. "Now how the hell am I supposed to find out who's after me?"

Dick hangs up on the emergency operator, who is presumably asking him for his name or something like that, and turns to frown at Jason. "Well, my vote is that we take a few minutes to have a look at those injuries of yours. If you keeping running around without at least patching yourself up a bit, you'll end up like this guy." He jerks a thumb over his shoulder at the thug who'd passed out from blood loss.

Jason bristles, immediately and instinctively. "I already told you, I am fucking  _fine_. I can take a few hits and keep ticking, thank you; I've had plenty of goddamn practice."

Dick looks unhappy at his words and takes a step forward like he might try to offer Jason some sort of comfort. "Jay-"

Jason takes a step back, tensing, and crosses his arms. "I ain't in the hugging mood, dipshit, so stop right there. I don't want your concern or your sympathy or your fucking  _pity_. I am fine. I am  _always_ fine. So how about you stop with this charade of brotherly love you're trying so hard at and just figure out who the fuck wants me to kick the bucket again, alright?"

Aaaand now Dick's got the kicked puppy face again. Great.

"Little Wing," he starts to say, tone plaintive.

They are, for better or worse, interrupted by a new arrival.

"What have the two of you gotten yourselves into now?" a familiar voice asks, and Jason curses under his breath.

Red Robin. Great. Because what he really needs to deal with right now is Tim fucking Drake.

"Red Robin," Nightwing says, his tone disproportionately delighted.

"Nightwing," Tim replies, his tone professional but also friendly and warm. ( _Brotherly_ , at least a little.)

"What the fuck are you doing here, Replacement," Jason growls, twice as annoyed as before because he now has _two_  Bats hovering around him. His luck is  _the worst_.

Tim's a curious and persistent little shit, too; getting rid of him is going to be downright impossible if he decides to poke his nose into Jason's business. (And Tim pokes his nose into everyone's business, because he has a need to  _know_  things, so Jason's pretty sure that he's going to be shit out of luck as far as that goes.)

"I heard a rumor about an hour ago about Nightwing and Red Hood being seen together, without bloodshed. It was a notable enough occurrence to make me want to check it out for myself."

"Well, I wouldn't say _no_  bloodshed," Dick remarks, mouth quirking up in a wry smile. "Hood here got attacked by an assassin," he goes on, very pointedly ignoring Jason's stop-talking gestures. "We're trying to track down the one who ordered the hit, but since our main source of information isn't very talkative at the moment," he toes the thug's unconscious form before stepping away as the sounds of emergency sirens finally start to trickle in from down the street, "we're going to need to think of another way."

"Oh, that's easy," is Tim's immediate answer, and he bends over, rifles through the guy's pockets, and stands back up holding an outdated flip phone. "Hm, a burner. Still, I should be able to get something off of this that'll at least point us in the right direction."

They all scale the closest fire escape and it's not until they reach the roof that Jason's brain catches up with what Red Robin had just said. "Hold on a minute," he says now, annoyed again. "There is no 'us' here, Replacement. It's just me, myself and I, trying to track down my would-be killer."

"What am I, chopped liver?" Dick asks lightly.

"You're a pain in my ass, is what you are," Jason snarls, starting to feel a little trapped and not sure why. (Maybe it's because he's outnumbered now? Except he's outnumbered in fights all the damn time and it's never bothered him before.

...Maybe it's because this isn't a fight at all really, and that possibility is more terrifying than anything.)

"Got it!" Tm declares suddenly, fingers tapping away furiously at the thug's phone. "I mean, I don't have a name or anything, but this phone has only called a handful of numbers since it was turned on, and most of them are food places or seedy motels. All we need to do with run the last couple numbers through our computer and we'll be able to track that loser's employer." He quickly types in a command on his wrist computer to transfer the information to the computer in the Cave and start running the appropriate program.

"Again with the plural," Jason says testily.

"Do I need to spell it out for you, Little Wing?" Dick's voice is lighthearted but with a hint of steel underneath. "We're going with you."

Jason can't quite stifle his groan. "Starting to wish I'd just let the damn assassin finish the fucking job," he grumbles.

"Don't say that," Dick says sharply, all teasing gone from his face so suddenly it's almost a shock. "Jason-"

"For fuck's sake, spare me your touchy-feely life is worth living speech," Jason snaps. "I'm tired and in pain and all I want to do is find the asshole who put a hit out on me so I can get on with what's left of my miserable life, so can we just not do the stupid worried brother thing and just focus on the job?"

Tim looks up from his small computer screen, gives them both wary looks, and then goes back to his work, evidently deciding that either they're not going to actually come to blows or it's at the very least not going to interfere with his phone tracking wizardry.

Dick scowls at Jason like he's a toddler mid-tantrum, a sort of mixed look of frustration and disappointment and that right there is why Jason avoids his siblings like a highly contagious plague. He  _hates_  those looks. Just for once, he'd like for someone to see him, the real him, and just...accept it. Because this is who he is now, maybe who he's always been, and it's not something that's going to change.

There might still be some of the old Jason left, some of that stupid kid who just wanted a family and tried his best to measure up in the eyes of others, but the current Jason eclipses that old one considerably. And Jason  _needs_  to be the way he is now, because if he's not...well, if he goes back to being who he was before, there's no guarantee things'll end any better than they did the first time. And he can't go through that again. So he snaps and snarls and pushes them all away, because it's something he needs to do to keep some fucking distance and stay safe and sane. (Well, as safe as a gun-wielding vigilante ever is, at least. And maybe, just maybe, it's just emotional safety he's trying to get, he doesn't even know anymore. He resolutely avoids thinking about it.)

Finally, Nightwing just sort of sighs and shakes his head. "I'm  _worried_  about you. You understand that, right?"

Jason inhales, holds it, then exhales. "I don't need your worry," he answers, fighting to keep his voice even. He blames his haywire emotions on the blood loss and sleep deprivation. "I can take care of myself just fine."

"The bleeding wounds would beg to differ," Tim interjects, looking up from his computer again.

"Okay, I really don't need  _your_  two cents, Replacement," Jason snaps, trying to ignore the pounding in his head and the buzzing in his ears. (It's possible that he might've underestimated the severity of his injuries, maybe just a little.)

Dick and Tim both take a step in his direction when he suddenly sways where he's standing but both freeze in place when Jason goes tense and glares at them.

"I am fine," he tells them, and okay, yeah, maybe Dick's not the only one who's mulishly stubborn at the worst possible times.

"You're not fine," Dick huffs out, crossing his arm. "You're bleeding out and being a cantankerous idiot."

Jason opens his mouth to shoot back a scathing retort, but then suddenly everything tilts sideways and the next thing he knows he's being manhandled into the backseat of a car.

He blinks once, twice, three times, and then a groan escapes before he can swallow it down. "What the fuck," he mumbles.

Dick's face appears above him, the worry obvious in the set of his mouth. "There you are, Little Wing. Had us scared for a second."

"Tt. Speak for yourself, Grayson," says a newcomer, and Jason groans again.

Damian. The most recent Robin and Bruce's biological son who never missed out on a chance to flaunt his supposed superiority in front of the rest of them.

"What the fuck is the demon brat doing here?" he demands, although it comes out sounding a little more plaintive than he'd intended. (He belatedly realizes that his helmet is somehow gone, leaving him in just his red domino.)

"He's the reason we're driving right now instead of hauling your carcass across the rooftops," Tim informs him from where he's up front in the driver's seat.

"He snuck out to patrol on his own," Dick adds on, slanting a vaguely disapproving look in the youngest brother's direction, "and caught sight of me and Tim trying to get you someplace more secure after you passed out. He decided to, ah, bring us a car to speed things along."

"Bring you a car?" Jason echoes. The statement befuddles his tired brain for a minute (because this car is decidedly not a Batmobile of any kind; it's actually a bit of a clunker) before the pieces click together. "He _stole_ a car for us?"

Dick makes a vaguely despairing nose of assent even as Damian bristles. "It was not for _you_ , Todd," he snaps, defensive. "I am simply trying to expedite things for Grayson, so that he may patrol with me and spare me Father's speech about patrolling alone on a school night."

"He's going to ground you," Tim offers from the front seat. "You're going to be very, very grounded once we get home."

Damian all but hisses, giving off distinct angry cat vibes that would make Jason laugh if he had the energy for it. "No one asked for your opinion, Drake!"

Jason can't help but snicker a bit as Dick adopts a long-suffering expression and pinches the bridge of his nose in a clear attempt to stave off an impending migraine. "Ah, yes, brotherly love. Such a happy, peaceful thing."

Nightwing punches him very lightly in his uninjured shoulder. "Shut up," he grumbles. "At least you don't have to literally live with them."

"Technically, neither do you," Jason feels obligated to point out, because it's the truth; Dick lives and works in Bludhaven. And while the other city is incredibly close to Gotham, nowhere is it written that Dick needs to spend as much time in the Manor and at the Batcave as he does. Subsequently, whatever misery he has to endure at the hands of his hell-siblings is strictly self-inflicted and Jason has no sympathy for him.

(Well, maybe a little sympathy, because  _Damian_.)

"Shut up," Dick says again, with no heat behind it at all. "Do you have a safe house around here we can take you to, so we can patch you up? I'm assuming you don't want us to bring you to the Cave," he tacks on.

"You assume correctly," Jason answers, running over the options in his mind. "I have a loft at the corner of 13th and Sycamore," he decides at last. "There's a freight elevator in the alley behind the building that goes right up to it; no one else uses it."

"13th and Sycamore?" Tim repeats, even as he spins the steering wheel to change course. "That's not really a good part of town."

"It's Gotham," Jason replies dryly. "Park Row specifically. No place is a good part of town."

His assertion is met with three noises of agreement, and he subsides, oddly content to just sit there as they drive through the dimly lit streets of the city. It's probably just the blood loss and exhaustion catching up to him, but this is...weirdly nice, the four of them just riding in a car together without it being a sign of the impending Apocalypse.

He drifts in and out of consciousness as they go, only vaguely aware of what's going on around him. Dick's hand in is his hair occasionally, his fingers finding the white streak that Jason's hasn't had time to dye black again. Tim occasionally offers updates on their progress, murmuring the streets they pass or turn onto. Damian mostly keeps quiet, but Jason feels a small hand on his wrist more than once, checking his pulse, and it shouldn't mean anything but it  _does,_ all of it does, and Jason feels like something in his heart is cracking, just a little bit, like ice thawing.

"Don't worry, Little Wing, we've got you," Dick murmurs.

And Jason...believes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end, but not really! This was just Part 1. Part 2/Chapter 2 will be written and posted as soon as possible, and it'll deal with Jason and the others (including Cass, Steph, and Babs, because I love them and the only reason they weren't included in this first half is because I was crunched for time and this part was already soooo much longer than I originally intended) finding out who put out a hit on Jason. Bruce will probably make an appearance at some point, too. I haven't decided yet. XD


	2. An Anchor During Rough Waters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...welcome to Part 2 of what was originally planned to be a short drabble for #batfamcontent war. XD It kind of grew as I was writing, so now do we not only have a longer Part 1, but also a Part 2, because I was having so much fun and didn't want to leave out some of my fave ladies (oh, and also the conclusion of the who-put-out-a-hit-on-Jason mystery, but who am I kidding, Barbara, Cass, Steph are why we're here, right? XD). Anyway, for the purposes of this story, Babs is Oracle, Cass is Black Bat (although I don't think I ever say as much in the story (whoops!), so I guess she can be Orphan to you if that's what you prefer her as XD), and Steph is back to being Spoiler (partially to keep with how she's back to being Spoiler in the comics, but also partially because I really like her outfit as Spoiler. :P). And Bruce doesn't appear in the story exactly, at least not for the purpose of interacting with Jason, but his presence is definitely felt, towards the end. XD
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy the conclusion to this weird little story of mine! Feel free to drop me a comment if you want to share your thoughts, or if you find a typo; I suck a proofreading my own work so there are probably all sorts of stupid little errors. ;D

### An Anchor During Rough Waters

The first thing Jason notices when he wakes up in his Sycamore Street loft is that his wounds are stitched closed. (Also that he's out of his Red Hood outfit and body armor and dressed in sweatpants and a threadbare t-shirt instead, but that doesn't seem quite as important as the no-longer-dying-from-blood-loss thing.)

The second thing he notices is that he's not alone in the loft; Dick, Tim, and Damian are there.

His brothers.

They'd brought him to one of his safe houses and...taken care of him, apparently; God knows Jason hadn't been in any condition to stitch himself up, so it had to have been them.

(And even more than that, they'd stayed.

Jason's not used to people staying for him. No one ever really had before, after all. Not his career criminal father, or his addict mother who'd sold him out to the Joker.

And his time as Robin had been too short and had ended so horribly that even if he had been sure of Bruce's affection and loyalty before, he wasn't now. He  _couldn't_  be, couldn't afford to harbor such a hope, because it was a weakness. Because if he did and he was wrong it would feel like dying all over again.)

But Dick, Tim, and Damian...those three idiots had stayed. Were  _still there_ , even. Dick's putting together some sandwiches in the little kitchenette, Tim's doing something on a laptop that he seems to have procured from thin air, and Damian is reading a book he'd pulled from Jason's bookshelf in the corner (at least, Jason's pretty sure it's one of his books; he doesn't think Damian's the type to be lugging around a copy of  _Animal Farm_  while on patrol).

Jason honestly doesn't even know how to feel about this development. He tries, almost desperately, to think of something witty or sarcastic to say but all his brain's got to offer him is white noise, like the mental equivalent of a 404 error code.

Luckily, Dick chooses that moment to turn around with his plate sandwiches; he notices that Jason is awake at once, and abandons the sandwiches on the closest flat surface. (Aforementioned surface happens to be the top of a packing crate full of handgun ammo, but whatever.)

"Jay!" Dick exclaims, hurrying over like the overbearing mother hen that he is. "You're up! How do you feel?" He reaches out a hand towards Jason's forehead as if to check for a fever (probably a reasonable idea given how quickly infection could take root in a serious wound), but Jason swats his arm away, ignoring the painful twinge in his shoulder from the sudden movement.

"I'm fine, Big Bird, back off," Jason says, and he means for it to come out more snappish than it does; instead, he just sounds tired and faintly (and almost fondly) exasperated.

Dick seems inordinately pleased by this noticeably non-snarly response and gives Jason a wide beaming grin.

Jason groans and drags his pillow over his face to block out the sight of his brother's stupid smile. "What are you three idiots still doing here?" he demands of the room at large, speaking just loud enough to be heard through the pillow muffling his voice. "Bruce is going to flip his shit if he notices that you've all gone off the grid at once."

Dick (because he  _is_  a dick) snatches up Jason's pillow-of-hiding (not that Jason would ever admit to using his pillow as an avoidance tool, because that's a little childish even for him...even if it is true). "Don't worry," Dick says cheerfully. "Oracle's got it covered."

Jason bolts up almost fast enough to endanger his stitches. " _What._ "

Dick prudently decides to take a step away, but Tim glances up from his work and answers without looking even a little worried at the vibes of fury that Jason is emanating. (Jason's pretty damn impressed at the kid's poker face, actually, even if he's not willing to admit it out loud.)

"I helped her a little," Red Robin explains. "Bruce shouldn't notice any of us missing from our patrol routes, and even if he does, Oracle's concocted a story that'll keep him off our backs long enough to get home." He flicks a look back down and then tosses Jason a small communication ear-piece. "Here, say hi."

"What the-"

"Jason Todd, I swear to God I thought you were smarter than this," is the first thing Barbara Gordon says to him when the comm line activates, her voice slightly distorted from the transmission but even so  _that tone_  is unmistakable. "Traipsing around the city with untreated critical wounds...what the hell were you thinking?"

Jason's thrown for a loop by her attitude; like with his brothers (and he's still more than a little wary of applying that term to them, but no other label seems to fit as well), he's never been quite sure if she actually gave a damn about what happened to him.

As far as he'd known prior to this exact moment, she'd always viewed him as the Fuck-Up Robin who'd never be able to measure up to the unparalleled Richard Grayson. (Apparently he'd been wrong about that, too; the level of furious scolding he's getting now seems to imply that she cares at least a little about him, for whatever reason.)

"I'm fine," he tells her now. "I've had worse, you know that."

"You're an idiot," is the original Batgirl's verdict. "If you're ever injured that seriously again you will contact me and I'll arrange a pick-up to get you somewhere safe. Is that understood?"

"Babs-"

" _Is that understood?"_

"Oh my fucking God," Jason mutters, feeling decidedly steamrolled. "Fine, I'll fucking call you if I'm ever too injured to make it back on my own. Happy now?"

"Ecstatic," is her very dry response. "Now," she continues, "stop talking and get some more rest. You lost at least two pints of blood, for crying out loud."

"You're the one who called me," he feels obligated to point out, and is rewarded with a loud sigh that makes his earpiece crackle.

"Shut up and rest, Hood," Oracle tells him, tone unnervingly amused and fond, and then she hangs up on him.

"What the fuck," Jason huffs out, removing the earpiece and dropping it down onto the nearby coffee table.

"I told you, Little Wing," Dick says seriously, "we've been worried about you."

Jason gives that statement the suspicious side-eye it deserves but ultimately decides to refrain from commenting; as cathartic as it might be, starting a fight with Nightwing right now is a bad idea for a while list of reasons, his own weakened state being the most notable.

So he doesn't say anything, just looks away and tries to think of ways to get these three lurking Bats out of his safe house.

Then two more members of their eccentric family arrive via the fire escape and Jason only barely keeps himself from dramatically flopping back down onto the sofa.

Then Spoiler tugs down her cowl and fixes him in a too-bright grin that promises trouble and he figures 'fuck it', and  _does_  fling himself back down onto the couch (though not as fast or as hard as he normally would; stitches and blood loss and all that).

"I can't believe you let some pansy ass hired killer get the drop on you, Hood," Stephanie Brown says, flouncing over to perch on the arm of the sofa and peer down at him. "You're supposed to be Mr. Badass."

"Excuse you," Jason retorts indignantly, "I am  _King_  Badass, thank you very fucking much."

Stephanie snorts, and then tentatively reaches out to squeeze his shoulder, her voice dropping into a softer and more hesitant cadence. "Don't...don't be that stupid again, okay? Things...wouldn't be the same if you weren't around."

Jason swallows hard, because Stephanie is like him, all sharp edges and edged barbs because trusting is a risk and it's better to strike first and never show weakness. For her to actually come out and say something like  _this_... "I'll try," he whispers, because that's all he can offer her. He can't promise to never put himself in danger again, because doing precisely that is indisputably his  _modus operandi_  by this point. But...well, maybe putting a little more value on himself wouldn't be  _such_  a terrible idea, if for no reason other than to spare himself these bizarre sibling gatherings.

Then Cass comes over, in all her five foot glory, and looks up at him with those dark knowing eyes, her special and clever mind reading everything he's thinking and feeling in the lines of his body and the angles of his face. "Be more careful, brother," is all she says, but there's worry in her voice and a shadow in her eyes, so all he can do is nod and agree.

"I'll try," he says again, and means it even more than he had before. (He also marvels a bit at how his brothers trying to get him to be more careful makes him bristle like a porcupine and start searching for his weapons, but a few words from their sisters has his stubborn defiance crumbling like a dried out sandcastle.)

Cassandra seems satisfied enough with his answer; she nods in return, darts forward to wrap him in a tight hug, and then retreats back to Stephanie's side, the two of them sharing an entire conversation in just an exchanged look.

"So," Steph says after a few seconds of tense and awkward silence (having all six of them in close quarters together is always a bit like having a box of unstable TNT; the slightest thing could set things off into explosions), "any progress on finding the asshole who tried to have our brother killed?"

Jason blinks in surprise when suddenly everyone in the loft gathers in close, huddling together like a team. ( _Or like a family_ , he thinks.  _Closing ranks to protect their own._  Except he's not one of their own...is he?)

"Babs and I finished running the phone numbers we collected through the tracking algorithm," is Tim's response. "We've eliminated most of them as possibilities, and now we're down to two potential candidates. The first," he says, typing on his laptop and pulling up some information, "is Lanford Hauer. A small-time drug lord with a big checkbook. The Red Hood," he slants a look over at Jason, "single-handedly dismantled his entire operation in under two days. No one was killed, but four of the dealers will never walk right again, and their two main warehouses inexplicably exploded."

"His guys were dealing to kids," Jason snaps, just a tad defensive. "I don't put up with that shit, and he knew that when he tried to start selling in Crime Alley and the Bowery." So what if his methods are a little extreme? It gets the job done; Hauer and his goons won't be peddling meth or heroin to schoolkids anymore, not if they know what's good for them.

"No one's judging you, Jaybird," Dick says soothingly. "Tim's just laying out the facts so that everyone's on the same page, okay?"

Jason wrinkles his nose but nods in assent. "Yeah, okay. Go ahead, Replacement," he adds, waving at Tim to keep going.

Red Robin rolls his eyes a little, but obliges. "The second possibility is Gordon Lennox."

"The House of Representatives delegate?" Dick asks, looking genuinely surprised. "Isn't he on trial for corruption and human trafficking charges?"

"Yeah," Tim replies, scrolling through the page on his computer. "Apparently his operation was exposed when Jason brought down that smuggler a few months ago, Hektor Ambrogi. Lennox apparently had a side deal going with Ambrogi to transport his latest group of victims and the harbor police discovered them when they seized the cargo ship, after the Hood was done with Ambrogi. It all sort of spiraled out from there and now Lennox is staring down a thirty year sentence in a federal prison."

"Lennox is the most likely culprit," Damian interjects. "He is the one who has lost the most because of Todd's actions."

"I agree," Cass says, while Stephanie nods along.

Jason just stares at them all a little blankly. "I've never even met this asshole Lennox. His human trafficking ring wasn't even my target at the time." Although it certainly would have been if he'd known about it at the time. He hadn't scraped together enough information on Ambrogi back then to realize that the doubebag had a connection to a House of Reps delegate, but obviously he also hadn't minded when his attack on Ambrogi had brought down a human trafficking operation as well; he'd just never realized how personally Lennox might take his downfall. Truth be told, he'd forgotten all about Lennox himself until just now; as far as Jason was concerned, he was just another pathetic criminal taking advantage of the unfortunate, nothing distinctive about him.

"Even if he wasn't your target, Jaybird, it looks like now you're his," Dick says, his tone almost apologetic. Then he turns back to Tim. "Were you able to confirm that he was the one who hired the assassin?"

"Not yet," Tim admits, sounding faintly frustrated. "I mean, we're pretty positive it's him, but we don't have the data to prove it. Oracle is scouring his bank accounts, but his offshore ones are heavily encrypted and it might take some time to confirm that he's the one without...additional help."

Jason's not sure he likes the sound of that. "What do you mean, additional help?" he asks, suspicious.

"Father has better resources when it comes to locating information regarding offshore bank accounts," Damian remarks. "If we ask for his assistance-"

"No," is Jason's immediate visceral response as he sits back up, his entire body suddenly tense. " _Hell_  no. I don't want Bruce involved." The more distance between him and Batman, the better for everybody. There's too much disappointment and anger between them now for even a brief interaction to end well.

"He doesn't need to know  _why_  we're looking into Lennox's offshore accounts," Stephanie says. "We can just ask him to hand over the info and that'll be that."

"It's Bruce," Jason reminds her, reminds all of them. "He can't just let something go. If you ask him to pull information on Lennox's recent transfers, he's going to wonder why you're asking all of a sudden. Then he's obviously going to notice that one of those transfers was to pay for an assassin. Then he's going to go digging even more, _because it's Bruce_. How long do you think it'll take him to figure it out and put the pieces together? He's the World's Greatest Detective, for fuck's sake, he's going to realize that the assassin Lennox hired was sent to kill me."

"Perhaps he could help us," Cassandra says, her words slow and careful, like she's not entirely sure of them but feels like they need to be said.

Jason snorts and shakes his head. "We are talking about the same Bruce Wayne here, right? Because the one I know is not going to be on-board with helping  _me_. We hate each other, remember?"

"You don't hate each other," Dick argues, tired and exasperated. "You're just...going through a rough patch, that's all."

"A rough patch?" Jason echoes, disbelieving. " _A rough patch?_  Way to fucking understate things, Dick." He shakes his head again, leaning back. "Even just ignoring the obvious fact that he's not going to do anything to help a homicidal maniac like me-" he ignores the eye rolls from his siblings "-he's definitely not going to be happy when he realizes that the five of you are trying to help me. He's still got a standing order out to stay away from me whenever possible, right? Somehow I don't think this," he waves a hand around to indicate their close little huddle, "qualifies as 'staying away' from the big bad Red Hood."

There's a long moment of tense silence, and then Tim shrugs.

"I'm sending him the request," he announces. "We need to confirm that it's Lennox who hired your attacker; if we're wrong and it's someone else then you're still going to be in danger."

Jason barely resists the urge to throw something at the younger man and focuses on keeping his breathing even. A deep breath in, exhale out slowly. Again; in, out. "I'm always in danger anyway, you idiot," he says finally. "A kill order won't make that much difference in the long run. And what part of 'I don't want Bruce involved' wasn't clear? Because I can repeat myself if your genius brain can't keep up."

"Too late," Dick says, thoroughly unrepentant as he glances over at Tim's computer screen with a small smile that seems oddly proud. "He's already sent the message."

Jason lets loose a very creative burst of swearing. He'd get up to pace and storm around the loft, but the sharp aching pain in his injured leg is telling him that that's probably not a good idea, so he's restricted to sitting on the couch and fuming.

He fumes damn well, though, and the Bats closest to him edge away a little, clearly wary of ticking him off further. The only one who doesn't seem perturbed is Cass, because she can see that he's in no way, shape, or form actually in danger of hurting any of them no matter how bad his temper gets.

Dick, having no self-preservation instinct that Jason has ever seen, decides to come closer and throws an arm across Jason's shoulders in a low-key embrace. "Relax, Little Wing," he says. "I'm sure Bruce can take a hint and just send us the info."

"You've known him the longest out of any of us,  _you know better_ ," Jason hisses at him, halfheartedly struggling to pull away from his older brother.

Dick, tellingly, doesn't respond. He also doesn't let go, so Jason's forced to stay put and sulk with his brother clinging to him like an overbearing limpet.

(He doesn't know why he's putting up with this. He really, really doesn't.

He blames it on the tiny mushy part of him that still clings to the idea of having a family, of having someone who watches your back even if you tell them not to. Someone who never gives up on you, even when you deserve it.

Somehow, he seems to have acquired five of these someones. He doesn't understand what they're thinking, why they're so determined to help him and include him in their number...but he can't deny that it feels  _good_ , to have them there.

Annoying as hell, but also good, and he supposes that's a good summary for siblings just in general.)

"So, what should we do while we wait to hear back from Bruce?" Stephanie asks, hopping off the arm of the couch and going to poke at his entertainment center. "Do you have any good games or movies, Hood?"

Jason feels a bit like he's fallen into some weird parallel universe; if someone had told him yesterday that today he'd have his siblings in one of his safe houses, trying to help him and asking about what to do for fun while they waited on intel, he would have laughed himself sick. "Uh..." He swallows hard. "I have a PS3 around somewhere, I think, and some old games. The movies are all there," he adds, pointing to the far right cabinet on the entertainment center. "The player's on the top shelf, just make sure to change the input so it connects to the TV."

"Oh, fuck you, I know how to work a DVD player," Stephanie grumbles, flipping him off over her shoulder.

Tim chuckles a little under his breath and sets his laptop aside to go peruse the DVDs with Steph, and after a moment Cass wanders over to join them.

Damian peers at the Bats clustered around the entertainment center for a moment and then seems to decide that movies are beneath him at the moment; he buries his nose back in his book and the intense look on his face is fairly adorable (not that Jason will ever say so, not unless he's deliberately trying to rile the kid).

Which leaves just Dick and Jason, still sitting on the couch.

"It's going to be okay, you know," Dick says now, his voice soft and careful. "I know it doesn't seem like it to you...but Jay, we're here for you, whenever you need us. That's what family is. Even if we don't always get along, family is still family."

Jason's not sure what to do with that. The whole idea of unconditional love, loyalty, or acceptance is just a totally foreign concept for him at this point. He wants to scoff and tell Dick not to be so naive, but...that doesn't feel right, either.

So he just stays quiet. (He want it, he realizes; he wants that feeling of family, of  _belonging_.

He wants it, and if they want to try at this, too, well...maybe that's not a bad place to start.)

Eventually they do put on a movie (some sci-fi flick that Jason vaguely recalls picking up out of a bargain bin at a thrift store), and everyone settles down to watch it. Cass retrieves the previously abandoned plate of sandwiches (peanut butter and jelly, as it turns out) and passes them out before neatly folding herself down to sit beside Stephanie, who's already critiquing one of the main characters for being an idiot.

Even Damian looks up from time to time, and also offers his opinions on the film (mostly consisting of things like "That fool should have known better than to turn off his communicator," and "Why did the group split up? An infant would have better tactical sense!" and so on).

They're about two hours into the movie and about to reach the final fight sequence when suddenly Tim's laptop chimes with an alert.

Then, before Tim even has a chance to do more than stand up and start going over to check on it, it chimes again. Then a third time. And a fourth, fifth, and sixth time, until Jason kind of wants to throw it out of a window on general principle.

Jason's ire is forgotten, though, when Tim scrolls through his recent messages and adopts the most thoroughly flummoxed expression he's ever seen on the teen genius's face. (He genuinely can't recall ever seeing Tim looked so at a loss for something found on his computer screen.)

"What's wrong, Tim?" Dick asks, concern coloring his tone.

"Uh..." Tim seems to flounder for a moment before recovering a little and reaching for his keyboard. "Just...hang on a second."

Well, that's...not reassuring at all, Jason decides, carefully standing up with the intention of going to lurk behind Tim and peer at the screen himself.

His shivved leg is not terribly supportive of this idea, but before Jason can do much more than wince and wobble in place, he's got Dick bracing him on one side and Cass on the other and then they're shuffling over to where Tim's set up, with Steph and Damian trailing behind them, because all Bats are nothing if not curious and nosy.

None of them expect to see a flurry of alerts from Oracle about how all of Gordon Lennox's bank accounts, domestic and overseas (even the supposedly hidden ones) have been emptied of all their funds, with the money spread around anonymously to various Gotham charities and orphanages. They're even more surprised when a follow-up message from Barbara adds on that as much as she would have enjoyed doing it, she hadn't been the one responsible.

It had been Bruce, apparently.

And then Oracle sends them another quick flurry of messages, the information in these even more mind-boggling than what had come before.

Apparently, while they'd been busy watching a movie and ignoring the rest of the world for a few hours, Gordon Lennox had made an escape attempt during the morning shift change at the facility he was currently being held at. (Jason takes a moment to be surprised that it was already a new day already; between passing out from blood loss, being unconscious for who knows how long, and spending some unexpectedly satisfying time with his siblings, he had totally lost track of time.)

Batman had, it seemed, been waiting in the wings for just such an occurrence (to the point where Jason finds the timing almost a little too convenient) and had swooped down with no delay and beat Lennox to hell and back, before tossing him right back inside the building with a dropped remark about how Lennox's escape attempt very definitely added another felony to his list of charges, and since there were so many witnesses, obviously he would be convicted for at least that, even if he managed to bribe his way out of the other charges.

Which meant that Lennox was now beaten to a pulp and would definitely be spending at least two or three years in prison, at minimum.

Because apparently Bruce Wayne a.k.a. Batman had decided to take the information he'd gotten from them and handle it himself.

"And you thought he didn't care, Little Wing," Dick says, turning to give him a small smile.

Jason huffs out an irritated breath, because  _what even_. "He's still an emotionally constipated asshole."

"No arguments there," Tim mutters, quickly typing out a response to Oracle while also trying to secure video footage of the morning's events.

Even Damian doesn't seem inclined to disagree with the slight to his father (probably because he's well aware by now that Bruce has some serious issues, just like the rest of them), and instead responds only with, "I'm sure Father did what he felt was best. At the very least we can now rest easy knowing that the threat to your life has been dealt with, Todd."

"Yeah, that's a relief, right? Now you only have to deal with the regular stuff like thugs with guns," Stephanie says with a tiny grin, while Cass gives a small laugh, although Jason's not quite sure what's funny about any of this.

His family is totally insane.

(He wonders how he never noticed before that he's not the only person literally batshit insane. At least he has the Lazarus Pit for at least a partial justification; his siblings and their emotionally constipated father-figure are just naturally bent out of shape. And somehow still moderately functional on most days.

Well, if moderately functional is a term that can be applied to a group of traumatized souls who dress up in costumes and fight crime.

...Okay, maybe he can understand a little why Cass had laughed; they're a motley little crew of dysfunction, that's for sure.)

"Well, whatever," he says at last, pulling away from his siblings to go collapse back down onto the couch. "What movie should we watch next?"

They all abandon Tim's laptop again and congregate back around him, facing the TV; everyone suggests something to watch at the same time, their voices overlapping in a cacophony that should be annoying but instead just feels...right.

Jason can't help but bask in it, this warm feeling, with his siblings around him. It feels like family, and he has to admit...it's all he's really wanted for a long time.

He feels like he's come home. And for someone who's never really had a home, it's everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this time it really is the end! I hope this second half of the story was satisfying for everyone; I know Bruce not actually showing up is probably a little disappointing, but I just couldn't find a way for him to actually be there without it seeming weird. And I feel like this outcome is believable enough, especially considering how bad Bruce is at expressing his feelings in a normal/healthy way. I might eventually do a small follow-up where Bruce and Jason bump into each other on a patrol and Jay's like, " So...thanks for beating the crap out of Lennox, I hadn't realized you still cared," and Bruce is still emotionally constipated but somehow they figure things out? I don't know, we'll see. XD


End file.
